The Half-Truth Effect and Its Implications for Sustainability

Alberto Barchetti, Emma Neybert, Susan Powell Mantel and Frank R. Kardes
Additional contact information
Alberto Barchetti: Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati, 2906 Woodside Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
Emma Neybert: Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati, 2906 Woodside Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
Susan Powell Mantel: Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati, 2906 Woodside Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
Frank R. Kardes: Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati, 2906 Woodside Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: Misinformation on sustainability has become a widespread phenomenon in many different contexts. However, relatively little is known about several important determinants of belief in misinformation, and even less is known about how to debias that belief. The present research proposes and investigates a new effect, the half-truth effect, to explain how message structure can influence belief in misinformation. Two survey-based experiments were conducted to show that people exhibit greater belief in a false claim when it is preceded by a true claim, even if the two claims are logically unrelated. Conversely, when a false claim is presented before the true claim, it reduces the belief in the entire statement. Experiment 1 shows the basic half-truth effect. Experiment 2 investigates an individual difference, propensity to believe meaningless statements are profound, which impacts the half-truth effect. Both experiments also investigate debiasing of the false information. The results of the experiments were analyzed using analysis of variance and regression-based mediation analysis. Results show that belief in misinformation is dependent on message structure, and show that the order in which true and false elements are presented has a strong influence on belief in sustainability misinformation. Finally, we present a discussion of how policy makers can use these findings to identify those people who are most likely to be swayed by the misinformation, and then design responses to debias sustainability misinformation.

Keywords: sustainable consumption; sustainable judgement and choice; misinformation; sustainability; GMOs (genetically modified organisms); fake news; half-truth effect; persuasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/11/6943/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/11/6943/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:11:p:6943-:d:832821

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().